Fragment One

He fled through the woods, the foliage littering the ground rustling in his ears; a backdrop against the harsh grating of his steaming breath. The moon shone silver through ultramarine overcast clouds; its quicksilver effulgence casting a surreal light upon the world. His feet were bare; they snagged on jagged rocks hidden beneath the pungent, rotting leaves, and bled, staining them with a vivid crimson. But he was in that state of excitement which renders a person insensible to all but the most excruciating pain until later, when it would assault the numbness in a flood of sensation. He had been running for he knew not how long. All he knew were the pines and their shadows, the moon and the clouds, the leaves and the rocks, and his terror.1

They chased him. He heard their screams and shrieks and howls echoing amongst the bowels of the trees, travelling far in the thin crispness of the early-morning air. He knew not how he came to be there, fleeing through the metallic night. He had simply come to his senses on the run, with cries of madness in the dark which pierced his ears like arrows and raised the hackles along his spine. He was running from phantoms; from primal fear which lurked in the gloom and sought folk out in their beds in the middle of the night to hunt and haunt for the sating of some dark and twisted impulse.2

The sounds varied in tone. A cry would go up which sounded like the baying of an infant, only to be followed by a cackle of delight and a low, bestial moan. The sounds seemed to manipulate his body, sending shivers and prickles along his flesh in waves.3

He turned his head from side to side occasionally; unable to bear the suspense of not knowing where they were, and on one occasion of doing so, he glimpsed a shadowy form flitting between the trees to his left about two hundred feet away. It looked to be feminine. It had long, streaming black hair, thin arms tapering to long, spindly fingers, and its form was shrouded in what looked to be a rich, tattered purple cloak which flailed after it in a stream of floating fabric. His eyes widened. He had seen one of his pursuers, and it was more the implications of what he had not seen which sent a new surge of adrenaline into his system, as he began to pump his legs in earnest, so that they fell like pistons. The figure had no legs. He pushed the thought away frantically, trying to forget how the form had seemed to float inches off of the ground, keeping pace with him effortlessly, taunting and mocking his every move.4

Before long, he noticed that he was running up an incline which rose at a harsh angle. He ran on until he was near exhausted, despite the rush of natural drugs suffusing his body, and the power of his terror, which told him to keep on moving, no matter what. And just as he thought his strength was almost spent; just when he thought that he was about to fall into the bed of decay which littered the forest floor and lie there vulnerable and defenceless, a victim awaiting its predator, he burst through the trees into a moon-lit glade which stood upon the crown of a hill. The hill was narrow and steep, and terminated in a small head at the top, which was rounded almost like the head of an egg, so that the sides fell away sharply on either side. The grass was rich and sparkled with dew, which glistened in the light of the moon.5

He threw himself upon the soft and springy grass, feeling the coolness of its moisture contrasting pleasantly with the salty heat of his sweat, which evaporated steamily into the frigid air, shrouding him in his own mist. He lay there panting and retching, his stomach heaving up lactic acid which he was compelled to spit; his limbs feeling like lead – squeezed and utterly spent. He shivered and fell into a spasm. He remained in this state for some time, and it was only when he began to recover that he perceived that the incessant howling of his pursuers had ceased.6

He lay there panting on one side of the hill, close to the crown. Behind him, the hill sloped down toward the dark canopy of tall pine trees. He got to his hands and knees and began to crawl slowly, warily, toward the apex of the hill, the mud and grass smearing and staining the dark fabric of his leather trousers. Before long, he arrived at the top, and saw that the silver orb of Selene was shining somewhat duller than before, although she was large and luminous, like a pregnant spider; its webs, the streaks of light which extended like silk across the sky. She glared down harshly upon him as he crouched there gazing upwards, and as he locked his eyes with the eye of the moon, he heard the sounds that he had been dreading. There was a high-pitched, keening shriek from the west, which was answered first by one from the north-east and then by one from the south-east. They continued to caterwaul for what seemed like hours, but he could discern that they were gradually closing in on the hill, biding their time. He imagined them sidling leisurely through the trees, relishing his fear and mocking him, and he felt the first thrill of hot rage ignite in his breast.7

What seemed like ages passed, until their noise seemed to be all around him on either side, and he thought that he must surely see their ghastly heads arise from below to be silhouetted by the net of stars which spattered the night sky. He huddled in the perfect centre, his skin pale, his face haggard and sunken and his brown hair straggling to his shoulders ragged and matted. The suspense eventually got to such a finely-honed point that he almost persuaded himself to leap spread-eagled off of the crown of the hill upon the spot where he gauged the western fiend to be approaching from, if only to have something solid to grapple with.8

He was upon the desperate brink of performing this act when, from the west, a head began to rise from the gloom, silhouetted against the stars as he had imagined. His breath caught involuntarily, and he started, for the sight was as strange as it was disturbing. The hair was wispy and pervasive, like ethereal snakes, and it seemed as though those strands could reach through the flesh to caress the very soul and befoul it with their perverse contact. It did not reflect the light of the moon, and neither did the huge, black oval eyes which appeared next. They were pitch-black like the darkness at the bottom of fathomless crevices, or at the bottom of the sea, where the sun has never been. They were voids, and they were large, and they were hypnotic, pulling his gaze into their depths as though it were a rope by which the rest of him could be consumed; devoured, slowly. The lower half of the face came next. The nose was small and upturned. The cheeks were hollow and the skin was stretched like old parchment. The mouth was shrewd and old and puckered up. But the eyes were timeless, and they were by far the largest feature of the face. They demanded the response of fear.9

Her whole form appeared slowly, and he saw that her body was clad in a robe which was the colour of ultramarine blended with a dark indigo, like heady wine or a sinister poison. Rustling sounds from the north-west and south-east caused him to turn in those directions, where he saw the first apparition’s twins likewise approaching, wrapped in robes of rich maroon and a deep, viridian green. They formed a triangle with him in their centre, and began to close in, and as he crouched there, eyes bulging, frozen in fear, he again noticed that their legs were hidden by their robes, and that they did not appear to be taking steps, but rather gliding along the floor, as though separate and apart from the earth its self. And he knew that they were old, and that they had been here long before humanity.10